Khomeini Calls For `Full-fledged War`

July 05, 1988|By Ray Moseley, Chicago Tribune.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on Moslems Monday to undertake ``a full-fledged war against America and its surrogates`` after the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian airliner with 290 people on board.

In his first statement on the incident, which occurred Sunday morning in the Persian Gulf, the 88-year-old cleric and revolutionary leader joined other Iranian spokesmen in cries for revenge against what he called the

``criminal America.``

U.S. embassies around the world were placed on alert in anticipation of Iranian retaliation.

Newspapers and government leaders in a number of countries said the incident emphasized the need for an end to the Iran-Iraq war, which drew the U.S. Navy into the gulf last year to protect commercial shipping. Some also called on the U.S. to reduce its military presence in the gulf or otherwise take a more low-key role.

Iran`s Arab allies, Syria and Libya, said the incident showed the dangers of the U.S. pres-ence in the gulf, and they demanded the withdrawal of all foreign navies from the waterway. But most Arab na-tions in the region blamed the tragedy on the war, now nearly 8 years old.

Bahrain, which provides some facilities for U.S. ships in the gulf, said in a statement, ``Continuation of the destructive Iraq-Iran war threatens the entire region with more tragedies day after day.``

Kuwait, accused by Iran of aiding Iraq, said: ``More painful incidents will occur if hostilities between the two northern Moslem nations are not ended immediately.``

The U.S. cruiser Vincennes brought down the airliner, an Airbus A300, on a flight from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to Dubai, when it flew near the ship after the Vincennes had been in a battle with Iranian gunboats. U.S. spokesmen said the Vincennes believed the airliner was an F-14 sent aloft to attack it and fired two missiles after the plane ignored warnings from the ship to change course.

U.S. investigators flew to the gulf from Washington Monday to try to determine why the Vincennes had mistaken the airliner for an F-14.

Khomeini, in a statement issued in Tehran, said his country was in a war against ``all oppression, a war between Islam and all the inequalities of the capitalist and communist worlds.``

``We should all rush to the fronts for a full-fledged war against America and its surrogates,`` he said. ``Any doubts today amount to betraying Islam.`` Khomeini`s designated successor, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, earlier had appealed to him to order attacks on U.S. interests throughout the world. Iranian President Ali Khamenei called President Reagan a murderer and denounced what he called ``a savage and ruthless crime.``

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati told United Nations Sec. Gen. Javier Perez de Cuellar that the downing of the plane was a deliberate act. He urged that UN experts be dispatched to the scene.

``This attack, which has definitely been carried out intentionally, has immensely endangered the safety of civilian aircraft routes in the region,`` he said.

Radio Tehran, in a broadcast monitored in Dubai, said: ``The criminal United States should know that the unlawfully shed blood in the disaster . . . will be avenged in the same blood-spattered sky over the Persian Gulf.`` ``Our country is ready for martyrdom,`` the radio broadcast said. ``We will stand steadfast until the end to preserve the values of our movement and the ideals of our martyrs. We consider the attainment of martyrdom as the quintessence of our existence and desires.``

The Iranian news agency IRNA said the Foreign Relations Committee of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) had issued a statement calling the incident ``the most shameful of U.S. terrorist acts.`` The statement said Iranian troops would give ``a due reply`` to the U.S. and to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on the battlefield.

Iran also filed an official request Monday for an immediate investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization into the destruction of the Airbus.

Iranian officials said 180 bodies from the airliner had been recovered, some of them 3 miles from the point where the plane was hit south of Hengam Island. They said the victims included 38 foreigners, most of them from India, Pakistan and the Middle East.

Iranian divers searched waters 100 feet deep for pieces of the missile that destroyed the plane, they said.

Shipping executives based in Dubai said the U.S. Navy must adopt a more low-key profile or the conflict in the gulf will intensify. One executive who declined to be identified said other Western navies have escorted more tonnage of shipping than the Americans and have maintained a lower profile.

Privately, a number of Western navies have been critical for some time of the belligerent tone that U.S. sailors have taken in challenging ships and planes in the region.